Lockups

[nedsnow]

My IceBox has locked up three times this week. The first time must have happened during the night, as the box was unresponsive when I tried to access it in the morning. The other times, it locked up while I was watching a recording (Millionaire). I watch this by fast forwarding/skipping all the waffle/ads to only see the questions. When it happens, the box becomes completely unresponsive; the screen goes black and the TV says "No Signal" on the HDMI. The only thing I can do is push the power button for 4 seconds to reboot. Of course, that kills the recording of the News which is happening at the same time.

It's acting like something is telling it to turn off. I looked at the Power saving settings, and everything seems disabled; I even changed the Shutdown Function to "Suspend" even though its timer is set to off.

Is there anything I can do?

Ned

[MD]

Hi Ned,

We are sorry about this irritating problem. The best thing to do is pull out its power pin for at least an hour, overnight if possible, so the SSD can fully discharge any residual microvolts. Then plug it back in when it should simply restart.  If it looses its network connection then a soft reset will be needed via the LibreELEC icon in the settings menu which won't delete any recordings.

We are in discussions with the miniPC and the SSD manufacturers to find and fix the issue but it has been devilishly difficult as the problem is random and hard to reproduce in the test lab.

[MD]

Hi Ned,

Chatting to Daniel, our Technical Manager, we believe the issue of blanking may also be caused by a dodgy or degraded HDMI cable so also try swapping it for another one.

[nedsnow]

Thanks for your reply.

Is this the same problem? I read about the SSD issue, and that does not seem to be what I am experiencing. My box just stops while I'm using it, but there's no problem starting up. As soon as it happens, I just reboot (by holding the power button for 4 seconds), and it boots right up normally. I'm not thrown into the BIOS at all.

If you think this is the same issue, I'll just wait for a solution. In the meantime, I might disable the timeshift, as that's about the only thing I fiddled with.

Thanks,
Ned

[nedsnow]

I received your second reply while I was typing. I'll try another HDMI cable.

Thanks,
Ned

[PeteRyde]

If you think this is the same issue, I'll just wait for a solution. In the meantime, I might disable the timeshift, as that's about the only thing I fiddled with.

I've had both issues and the symptoms are very different. The problem you describe I've had occur a number of times since I turned on timeshift. I also found that you need to reboot to resolve it and it boots fine.

The other issue is so much worse. Mine usually doesn't boot at all. I've had to reload it from scratch.

[nedsnow]

Well, it looks like that was it. When I tried to unplug the cable, it came apart with the cable keeping the wires and contacts and the shell left behind in the socket. Sure enough, when I plugged in another cable the box was locked up again and I had to reboot it. Fingers crossed, it's now fixed.

Thanks,
Ned

[IanL-S]

Well, it looks like that was it. When I tried to unplug the cable, it came apart with the cable keeping the wires and contacts and the shell left behind in the socket. Sure enough, when I plugged in another cable the box was locked up again and I had to reboot it. Fingers crossed, it's now fixed.

Thanks,
Ned

Wow, that is not the sort of thing that should happen. I cannot remember the last time I had an HDMI cable do that (an I use a lot of them with multiple PCs and multiple PVRs/TVs.

Hopefully you are not having the annoying SSD problem. It is possible that time-shift could be a contributing issue (but not sure why it should be). My IceTV IceBox (not BYOB) which has time-shift active did something a little strange the other day when do a shutdown (it had not been shut down for well over a week before that); on-screen message about "failed to unmount /flash: device or resource busy" then "failed to finalize file system, loop devices, ignoring". Eventually shut down. Powered up without any problem. So did not pursue the matter.

Ian

[nedsnow]

Yes, it was a new one for me as well. I don't think I had the SSD issue, as my symptoms were completely different. I must admit I've never had a problem before unplugging/replugging an HDMI cable. The IceBox seems to be unusually sensitive to what's happening on its ports.

Ned

[nedsnow]

Just a quick update. The IceBox has been running 24x7 without a hitch since I replaced the HDMI cable. Goes to show that it is vital to use a new/known good HDMI cable!

Ned

[nedsnow]

I knew I shouldn't have posted the previous :-( Last night while fast-forwarding through Millionaire, the box stopped with a black screen and a "No Signal" message. This time, I knew enough to immediately go to the Tivo, which is always on Channel 90, and press record. The Tivo starts the recording from the beginning of the time-shift buffer, so I got the whole News broadcast. I then went back to the IceBox and rebooted it, which worked normally.

As the box had run for 10 days without a problem, either there's a giant coincidence and the replacement HDMI cable has gone bad, or there's something else in play, perhaps to do with fast-forwarding.